WAR: Operation Swarmer doesn't

What was marketed as the "largest air assault since 2003" has turned out to be more photo op. than actual military action. The "largest" referred
to was apparently was in transportion, not military action. According to journalists, there have been no air strikes, nor were any leading insurgents
captured. It seems no shots have been fired and forces met no resistance.

www.time.com
But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of
the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no air strikes and no
leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What's more, there
were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the US and Iraqi commanders.

The operation, which doubled the population of the flat farmland in one single airlift, was initiated by intelligence from Iraq security forces, says
Lt Col Skip Johnson commander of the 187 Battalion, 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne. "They have the lead," he said to reporters at the
second stop of the tour. But by Friday afternoon, the major targets seemed to have slipped through their fingers. Iraqi Army General Abdul Jabar says
that Samarra-based insurgent leader Hamad el Taki of Mohammad's Army was thought to be in the area, and Iraqi intelligence officers were still
working to compare known voice recordings and photographs with the prisoners in custody.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

This type of information needs to be gotten out. With approval ratings in the mid 30% range and the majority of Americans (59% or better according to
the most recent Wall Street Journal poll) doubting not only the war, but Bushes abilities and policies, this administration, and the Republican
leadership are getting desperate. What it boils down to is this, they are putting our men and women in uniform in harms way for a photo op to boost
their ratings is the polls. Is this new? No. Is it shameless? Absolutely. Should you be outraged? If you are not, you have blinders on. I served my
country and I am proud of it but to think that my life, or that of my comrades, or that of my children would be put on the line and scarificed for
some poll ratings and any boneheaded politicians ego, makes my blood boil.

Regen, I don't think this is redundant, as the the thread you offered was the event as it occured, and this one is about grover's conspiracy-related
information.

It might simply be in the eye of the beholder, but this is my thought, and all I can say is I hope I am not wrong since I am the one who has the final
up/down on ATSNN stuff.
Not that I want you to be wrong, but I don't want to make bad board decisions.

With the Interior Ministry's Samarra commando battalion, the soldiers had found some 300 individual pieces of weaponry like mortars, rockets
and plastic explosives in six different locations inside the sparsely populated farming community of over 50 square miles

(snip) The raids also uncovered high-powered cordless telephones used as detonators in homemade bombs, medical supplies and insurgent training
manuals

(snip)
some reporters helped themselves to the woman’s freshly baked bread, (snip)For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they’d found all
day

I don't mean to nitpick, but according to this article, the stuff that was found amounts to one heavy weapon for every 5th person in a 50 mile area.
Nice, quiet, peaceful, breadbaking farmland- nothing around for miles except cows and enough ordinance to turn your neighborhood into Little
Mogadishu. Sounds a lot like Texas, right?

Was it a crushing blow to the enemy? No. Was it everything the news media hyped it up to be? No. That's the media for you. Was I the only one who
started laughing his butt off the very moment the story broke? I sort of assume that TC knew, but were the rest of you actually deceived by the
media's pathetic and misguided obsession with military jargon? We all should have learned our lesson 3 years ago in the runup to this war, when
everytime a street light flickered or some idiot lit a road flare, the reporters started speculating whether this might be the beginning of "Shock
and Awe", like little children anticipating the grand finale of a 4th of July fireworks show.

I think the Times is being a little too smart for its own good on this story in their attempt to paint this administration as deceitful, which is a
little strange since a good part of the population is already convinced of that, and the rest never will be. The truth of the matter behind this
so-called photo op is that it was an under-achieved operation which netted maybe 1/4 of what people might normally have expected from an operation of
that size.

The underachievement being conceded, it should still be noted that this operation did accomplish a number of goals. It demonstrated the ability of
American forces to rapidly deploy a large force where ever they see fit, which is not good for enemy Morale. It gave the Iraqi troops a small but
useful experience in air mobile operations. It caught a few people, big fish or not, and enough weaponry to kill a few hundred people (300 pieces of
man-portable artillery, anti-tank weapons, and demolition only sounds like a small thing in Iraq. You'd whistle a whole different tune if that kind
of killing power went into action in an American city).

Now who's fault is it that the American media is selling slaughter to this warlike culture, which eats it up so rapidly that it doesn't pay for the
news services to wait for confirmation before reporting? Point at the administration with one finger if you like, but point to your next door neighbor
with the other, because if people didn't get off on it, it wouldn't be reported.

The sad state of affairs is I trust the media less than I trust the administration. They've proven themselves to be much less trustworthy than Bush.
Sure the haters disagree because they are closed minded bafoons that ignore any data or info that disagrees with their Bush-hate programmed
mindset.

So Time thinks it's a photo op...rriiiighttt. I guess they serve their MoveOn masters with loyalty.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Now who's fault is it that the American media is selling slaughter to this warlike culture, which eats it up so rapidly that it doesn't pay for the
news services to wait for confirmation before reporting? Point at the administration with one finger if you like, but point to your next door neighbor
with the other, because if people didn't get off on it, it wouldn't be reported.
[edit on 19-3-2006 by The Vagabond]

Originally posted by A Little Pop-Up WindowYou have voted The Vagabond for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left
for this month.

Providing you dont give the insurgents a chance escape or attempted to use political process the hardest task isnt entering an area where the
insurgents are active. IMO the hardest task is ensuring that there are no remaining insurgents in the area and preventing the insurgents from
infiltrating the area and influencing the local population.

Since we are not allowed to post an entire article it had to be edited down. That being said, the point of the post is to point of the HUGE
discrepency between how the operation was being portrrayed in the media as the "largest air assault since 2003" and the reality, not to present a
false picture of what was going on. The administration and the media lackeys have already done that.

What Media Lackies? The partisan spin-jockey's didn't break this story. It wasn't Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly. It was every
major news service, to the inclusion of Reuters and AP.

If this was a photo op, the administration would have known that nothing was going to happen and they were going to come out looking bad. It wasn't a
photo-op: it was a monument to overkill that netted perhaps 25% of what I would have expected, perhaps less.

If Bush has Media Lackies, outside of a hand full of partisan hacks running glorified op/ed shows (which BOTH sides of the aisle have by the way),
he'd better seriously drop the hammer on those lackies and tell them to stop making him look bad, because last I checked this administration was
under a massive and heavily reported seige by public opinion.

If you mean to suggest that there are comissars censoring our media or some such nonsense, I'd hate to see what would be reported if Bush
didn't have "lackies".

Come on vagabond we both know good and well Bush has been all but given a free ride for his entire tenure as president...at least until this past
year. And its about time as far as I am concerned. If the media had been dogging him like they did Clinton, he would never have been re-elected and
would probably be behind bars (a good place for him too) by now.

Originally posted by grover
Come on vagabond we both know good and well Bush has been all but given a free ride for his entire tenure as president

And his approval ratings certainly reflect the monopoly he holds on the media. I'm not saying that Bush doesn't deserve what he's getting, I'm
just saying that he is getting it. If you're gonna tell me that I don't know what I've read in the news you're gonna have to sell crazy elsewhere,
because I'm all stocked up.

If the media had been dogging him like they did Clinton

What is the obsession that partisans on both sides hold for bringing up Clinton? The two situations are completely dissimiliar and I think you'd
agree. Clinton got tarred and feathered basically for being bored with his wife (I WOULD BE TOO!) Bush got it because of a war. Big difference.
What's the correlation supposed to be?

he would never have been re-elected and would probably be behind bars (a good place for him too) by now.

I'm getting dizzy, cut the spin. If you've got a point to make feel free to break out something to substantiate a claim like that.

I think the corralations between Bush and Clinton are pretty clear... clinton was tarred and feathered over a personal indescretion at best, and lying
about it at worst and that is only part of the witch hunt that was conducted against him. Bush sold a war on false and/or trumped premises, which in
my book is a far greater and more impeachable offense than lying about some on the sides, and if it isn't it should be punishable as a war crime. I
will give the bugger Afghanistan, but these past three years are criminal and should never have happened.

Originally posted by grover
I think the corralations between Bush and Clinton are pretty clear... clinton was tarred and feathered over a personal indescretion at best
(snip) Bush sold a war on false and/or trumped premises

How does that establish any correlation or contrast unless you can somehow prove that the media isn't attacking Bush for these greater offenses which
he is so often accused of?

Bush did something very unpopular and he's taking it on the chin for it, although I don't get the impression that he's loosing any sleep over that
fact. The fact that Clinton was the victim of a partisan lynching attempt has spit to do with Bush, especially while this administration is living a
media nightmare.

As far as I can see, you simply don't feel the media has been opinionated enough in their coverage. Perhaps you're waiting for the associated press
to start editorializing their stories and calling for a war crimes trial; but short of that demand, which is an affront to anything even vaguely
resembling journalistic integrity, Bush hasn't got the calliber of media lackies that it would take to pin the coverage of Operation Swarmer on the
administration.

It's just this simple: If it bleeds it leads. Every news service wanted to be the first vulture to the corpses on this story, so they descended
before anything had actually died. As their reward, they got exactly what journalists deserve when they try to do more than simply report the facts as
they happen: they got the facts wrong and they humiliated themselves.

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